Creative Services wins Award of Excellence

Radford University’s Creative Services team housed inside of University Relations received an Award of Excellence in the poster category of the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) District III awards given out last week.

Radford’s submission was a Scholar-Citizen Initiative (SCI) poster series, which captured the purpose of SCI, which is to prepare students to analyze different viewpoints and apply ethical reasoning to contemporary issues; make connections between academic knowledge and civic life; and evaluate problems in the context of contemporary local, national or global issues. 

Director of Creative and Marketing Services Lee Coburn, Graphic Design Manager Nickola Dudley, Multimedia Producer Paul Davis, University Photographer Lora Gordon, Graphic Designer Nakia Shelton and copywriter/editor Mike Roche worked on the poster series in fall 2016.

“We wanted something that would have an emotional impact – and tell the story concisely with engaging visuals,” Coburn said.

SCI-CASE

The four posters in the series for SCI developed by Creative Services.

Shelton wanted to present the information in a manner that told the SCI story in a simple, effective and appealing manner.

“Photos were taken that specifically reflected the mood,” Shelton said. “We selected background images and designed the text in a way that emphasized the message, complimented the individuals we featured and told their story visually.”

To tell that story, the entire team took the project through each stage, which included initial meetings with the client to get the project goals, internal brainstorming based on those goals, pitching ideas back to the client, production and photography. The project was cleaned up in post-production before being sent to print.

The CASE District III awards honor recipients in 68 different categories. Approximately 700 universities across the Southeast, from big to small and private to public, enter their work into the competition.

“Being able to compete in such a large competitive group of universities from across the southeast United States and receiving recognition from my peers in the industry is very humbling,” Shelton said. “It is an exhilarating feeling and encouraging to know we are doing great work here for Radford University.”

Coburn said that he is proud of the entire team and that “it is wonderful to be recognized by your peers for exceptional work.”

The CASE District III poster award category is comprised of graphic design on a poster that may be advertising a program, event, campaign, policy or a similar project.

Feb 17, 2017
Max Esterhuizen
(540) 831-7749
westerhuizen@radford.edu